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October 14, 2014

Samsung Invents a Wearable Device that Senses User Motion

The US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that reveals a method and a wearable device to sense a motion of a user through relative position estimation and motion sensing of a wearable device operatively attached to clothes or a body of the user.

Samsung's invention is designed to interpret the body motion of a user which could enhance the portability and control of devices such as a smartphone, tablet, TV or beyond.

Samsung's patent covers a method that interprets the body motion of the user when attaching a motion sensing acceleration sensor to an electronic device.

Samsung's patent FIG. 3 noted below illustrates an example of wearable devices (#300-304) that are attached to the user's fingers that are able to sense the motion of the user.

The wearable device #300 and each of the neighbor wearable devices 301, 302, 303, and 304 correct a corresponding position, which is estimated through self-motion sensing, by mutually exchanging position related information. For example, a motion sensing unit (such as the motion sensing unit 210 of FIG. 2) in the wearable device 300 analyzes a motion of an individual finger, and estimates a distance between the wearable device 300 and each of the neighbor wearable devices 301, 302, 303, and 304 based on signal attenuation occurring due to a physical characteristic of magnetic near field communication.

Samsung explains that the wearable device can also be applied to the body or clothes of the user. For example, the accessories may include a ring, a wrist watch, glasses, a bracelet, an ankle bracelet, a necklace, an earring, and other accessory styles. A device applied to clothes of the user may include a clothing-type wearable computer. The wearable device could communicate with another device like a smartphone camera that incorporates similar motion sensing technology. Samsung notes that the motion sensor may include at least one of an acceleration sensor and an electromyogram (EMG) sensor.

The invention may also apply to all kinds of air gestures to control a Galaxy phone or tablet. While Samsung's patent describes the basics of the motion device, it fails to provide us with any specific examples that they specifically have in mind for this invention. Yet in combination with other recent Samsung patents, as we linked to above, we're able to paint at least one plausible scenario which isn't to limit the invention in any way.

Samsung filed their US patent application back in March 2014 which came to light three weeks ago at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

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